Just For You (28 page)

Todd took his bottom lip between his teeth and sighed heavily in defeat. "If that's what you want to do, then fine. I'll drop it. I can't promise you I'll stop being her friend, though."

"I never asked you to."

"As long as we're on the same page," Todd said, following Cameron back into the hospital. They were greeted with ice cold air and they breathed it in greedily, relieved to be out of the sun and humid air outside. Todd was forced to put his sweater back on.

They made their way up to Alex's room. He was up, eating hospital food from a tray placed in front of him while Sylvia sat in the chair next to the bed, reading a magazine. Alex smiled when he saw Cameron and Todd.

"Hey, I didn't know you were coming down here again," Alex said to Todd. Immediately he began to stand up and Sylvia made a noise of frustration.

"Alex Daniel Moody, I told you to stop moving around. You need to rest."

"Mom, I'm fine," Alex said as he walked toward his brother. "I'm discharged tomorrow anyway. I'm practically good as new."

"Yeah," Cameron smiled, pointing at the top of Alex's head, "good as new, except for that unsightly bump on the top of your already misshapen head."

Alex laughed and punched Cameron playfully in the arm before giving him a hug. "Shut up."

"How are you, man?" Todd asked. "Life still one big headache?"

"Life is always a headache," Alex countered. "I'm just glad to be getting out of here. Finally. I was afraid they were going to have to admit me to a loony-bin. They would have had to if they made me stay cooped up here any longer."

"Same goes for me," Sylvia said wryly, continuing to read her magazine article. "You took long enough for coffee, Cameron."

"Todd sort of derailed me." He said, shooting Todd a look.

"I was just asking about Imogen. Hadn't seen her in a while."

Cameron threw his head back. Damn Todd.

"She was here on Sunday," Alex piped. "She came to see me like she promised."

Cameron felt his heart leap to his throat but he swallowed to keep it down. A quick assessment of the room told him no one witnessed his sudden interest of the current topic. Even when she was nowhere to be found, he still couldn't rid himself of her.

"She did?" Todd asked.

"She was looking quite lovely, too," Sylvia chimed in. "Rather in a hurry, a bit distraught over something. She wouldn't tell me what."

Cameron tried to ignore the way his stomach felt as if it were falling out of his body and to his feet.

"Yeah, she was here" Alex said, climbing back into his bed and shoving a spoonful of cold mashed potatoes into his mouth. He chewed, making a face. "God, this stuff tastes like shit."

"Alex!" Sylvia slapped his knee. "Don't use that sort of language. It's unbecoming."

"Everything here is shit," Cameron told his brother, flopping down into a chair across from the bed. Sylvia turned her head slowly toward him, giving him her signature death stare. Cameron shrugged. "What?"

"You instigate it all, you know that?"

"Jesus, his choice of dirty words is my fault?"

"Stop, stop, stop," Alex said, holding his hands out in a diplomatic fashion. "Mom, I'm sorry. It's just that the food is so bad that cursing was the only way to truly describe it."

Sylvia sighed and stuck her head back into her magazine.

"Do you guys know what she went back to Louisiana for?" Alex's question was simple and innocent enough, but three heads whipped their way in his direction so fast he wasn't even sure he saw them move.

"Louisiana?" Sylvia gushed. "She didn't tell me she was headed there. What for?"

Alex shrugged. "I don't know. That's why I was asking them. She told me she was leaving on Tuesday. Two days ago."

Cameron and Todd glanced at each other. Todd was confused. Cameron was shocked.

"I have no idea," Todd said. "Do you?"

When he looked at Cameron, all heads turned in his direction. Cameron's vision went blank for a moment and time seemed to stop. Before he realized he was doing it, he was shaking his head no.

"N---no. I don't know why. I didn't even know she'd gone."

"I guess she didn't really tell anyone." Alex's voice was quiet. He was beginning to wish he hadn't said a word at all. He felt as if he'd just spilled a secret Imogen had confided to him and only him.

"Wow, she left." Cameron spoke aloud to himself, still only half-aware of the three others he was sharing a space with.

"I'm not surprised, with the way you acted toward her that first night at the hospital," Sylvia scolded. "You made it clear that, for whatever reason, you weren't welcoming her here."

Cameron closed his eyes and could only find strength enough to chant in his mind.
Shut up, Mother. Just shut up, shut up, shut the hell up.

When he opened his eyes again he looked straight at Todd. He was wearing an expression on his face which only Cameron could read perfectly, because they were both thinking the same thing. Todd swallowed, filling the silence of the room with wet noise.

"I just realized," Cameron said, standing up from his seat. "Uh, Todd and I, we're, uh. We've got somewhere really important we need to be."

They needed to get to her. Cameron had to get to her.

Todd was looking at Cameron for queues. "Oh, yeah. Somewhere important. Right now. Soon. Soon." He and Cameron were backing up toward the door. "We'll um, we'll call you soon, Mrs. Moody. And Alex, we'll see you soon, too, bud. Congratulations on your discharge."

Sylvia and Alex watched Todd and Cameron bolt from the room, fighting and pushing each other through the doors. Alex turned to his mother and they looked at each other with the same expression of perplexity and curiosity. Alex knew before Sylvia did. Before she had time to drop her magazine, Alex was throwing the blankets from his legs and jumping from the other side of his bed.

He caught Todd and Cameron just before they stepped into the elevator.

"Don't leave yet!" He wailed as he ran down the corridor, dodging people left and right. Cameron and Todd looked back at the same time, thrown off by the sudden commotion. Alex was out of breath, panting, grabbing tight hold of Cameron's forearm.

Sylvia had caught up, too, and she was attempting to pull Alex back to his room by his shoulders, apologizing profusely to the nurses and patients alike who had been disturbed.

"Cameron," Alex pleaded. "Wait for me, until tomorrow. I'm going with you." Sylvia was finally able to nudge him away and Alex's hands fell away from his brother. "I'm going with you."

Chapter Fifteen

I'm Taking Your Advice And I'm Lookin' On The Bright Side

It was hotter than the hinges of hell down South. Cameron always assumed people were exaggerating when they spoke of the oppressive heat, wet and heavy on the shoulders and back, hunching one over with its weight, but it wasn't until he felt it for himself that he realized how true it all was.

Even more surprising, though, was the beauty of Louisiana. The color green was abundant, and there was no shortage of lush trees or bushes to go around. There was an overpowering sense of leisurely slowness here, quite different from the hustle and bustle of the big city Cameron was so used to. For him, it was a badly needed time-out.

Tinges of sadness permeated the relative easy feeling here. Cameron could see how affected the city still was. Houses half-stood on their original foundations, their shutters falling off, the ceilings caved in. The houses drooped down to the ground like wilted flowers, ready to crash down any second.

Away from the disaster, it was easy for Cameron not to be touched by it. Until he'd seen it for himself, the way the water left destruction and death in its wake, the ruins still standing as ghostly reminders, like the ashes of Pompeii still frozen in time, he could never really sympathize. Seeing these houses, houses which must have teemed with life at one point, decrepit and rotting away under the shade of the willow trees which seemed even themselves to weep, put it all in a new perspective: there was a big world out there. It was larger and more grand than he could have ever imagined, and Cameron felt a sharp twinge of shame, fleeting though it was, that it took him 26 long years to see it.

It was so much more magnificent than he was.

Eventually he was able to locate Imogen's whereabouts. It happened most accidentally; while he and Alex recharged their batteries with a cup of hot coffee late that morning, he'd overheard two men discussing the rest of their day's work: helping to fix up a house two blocks away with Habitat for Humanity. Cameron stopped when he heard the name of the organization, his cup resting between his lips, hot steam gathering on the space between his mouth and nose.

Imogen had talked to him about Habitat for Humanity more than once before. He recalled with perfectly clarity now the way she told him that before she made the move up to Illinois she'd started helping the charity and made a few friends in the process, whom she was sad to leave behind.

Cameron figured that any stab in the dark was as good as the next, much better than sitting back and doing nothing. He didn't have a clue as to why Imogen had made her way back down here, but it was plausible that she was spending some of her time helping out with the organization she once told him she loved.

"Excuse me," Cameron said, turning in his seat to face the two strangers. They stopped their conversation, turning to him with expectant looks on their faces. Alex chewed quietly on his croissant. "You said you were working for Habitat for Humanity?"

One of the men, the older of the two, nodded his head. "Yeah. What can I do for you? Know of someone who needs a house?"

"No, but…" Cameron licked his lips. "You wouldn't happen to know a girl by the name of Imogen Campbell, would you?"

The older man furrowed his brows and pursed his lips.

The second, the youngest, did the same. Suddenly, he started to nod. "Yeah, the name sounds familiar, actually. I think I know who you're talking about. She's a skinny thing. Yay high?" He lifted his arm to the middle of his neck. "Long hair?"

Cameron nodded eagerly. "Yes. A freckle next to her top lip?" He placed a finger against the right corner of his own mouth, exactly where the freckle rested on Imogen's face. He'd remember that small detail forever; after all, he kissed that small beauty mark
that
night.

"Well, I can't be sure about the freckle."

The older man chimed in once more. "Why don't the two of you follow us on over to the site. You can have a look around. If you want, you can even pick up a hammer or two."

Cameron turned back to Alex and raised his eyebrows to ask the unspoken question: "You up for it?"

Alex's eyes lit up and he shoved the rest of his croissant in his mouth.

"What are you doing, storing for winter?" Cameron laughed at the way Alex's cheeks puffed out, full of food, as if he were a chipmunk.

Alex reached across the table and punched Cameron's arm, swallowing the food.

"Ow! I should punch you back for that." But he couldn't punch a kid just out of the hospital, he thought to himself, his eyes settling on a pair of light purple bruises still patched onto Alex's skin.